


Four Times Steph Promised Damian He Could Ask Her Out and One Time He Finally Did

by FridaysChild



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: 5 Things, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:17:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FridaysChild/pseuds/FridaysChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "Steph's always teased that when Damian's 18 he can beg for a date, but now she really wants him to ask her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Steph Promised Damian He Could Ask Her Out and One Time He Finally Did

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to clex_monkie89 who always helps me find the right bat words and salmon_pink who helps me plot and tells me when my words are supposed to be other words.

At thirteen, Damian is finally “allowed” to attend school with other children (much to his displeasure). He comes home one day and huffs to Steph about the behavior of his classmates, particularly the female portion. Especially one girl in particular.

“I do not understand her at all. She is entirely lacking in sense and far too focused on things like lip gloss.” Steph is amused, because she pretty much couldn't live without her bubblegum pink gloss. “Women are impossible. At least Cassandra and-” Damian cuts off suddenly, mid-rant.

Steph cackles. “You were going to say my name. Admit it, you were going to say something nice about me. Cassandra and I are what? Smokin' hot? Amazing fighters? Enjoyable company?”

Damian crosses his arms over his chest and turns his head to the side. “Hmph. You're a barely competent fighter, and if I was going to say something nice, I take it back now.”

Steph just cackles some more. “Tell you what, Damian, if you still think Cassandra and I are hot when you're legal, you can get on your knees and beg me for a date. And you'd better bring flowers.”

It's Damian's turn to laugh, now. “As if.”

 

When he’s fourteen, Damian is invited to the wedding of one of his older teammates. He and Atlas have never been particularly fond of each other and have a not-so-friendly rivalry; the invite appears to be Atlas’s way of rubbing his relationship in Damian’s face. There’s a plus one on there that he’s sure Atlas expects to go unused.

“He has no business getting married at nineteen anyway!” Damian rants to Steph, who is far more patient with him than most people other than Dick. Sometimes even than Dick. Damian recognizes that there are days when Dick has to be his father and his boss. He doesn’t like it, but Dick is smarter than Damian would like to admit about some things, and mostly Damian trusts him in the role of moral compass.

So Steph’s often his best bet if he wants pure niceness. She makes a sympathetic noise and dismounts from the uneven bars, sticking the landing perfectly. “So is this about your thing for Anna?” she asks. “She is quite the looker.”

“I don’t have a thing for Anna,” Damian snaps. Okay, one of the more annoying things about Stephanie is that she thinks she knows things sometimes. “She can marry that loser if she wants, I don’t care.”

Steph stretches, hand on her hip and other arm over her head, bending to the side. “But you wish you had someone even prettier than her to take.”

Damian frowns, crossing his arms over his chest and looking to the side. “I suppose. Actually, I was sort of thinking that you might-”

Steph laughs. “What did I say about waiting till you were eighteen? Besides, if you want Atlas to believe you’re dating your plus one, you should pick someone closer to your age. But I think I could find you a date if-”

“No,” Damian interrupts. “I just want to go with a hot chick.”

Steph looks like she’s not sure if she’s offended or flattered. “That’s the first time you’ve admitted you think I’m hot,” she settles on.

“Well, it helps that you stuff your bra,” Damian shoots back.

Steph just grins and claps him on the back. “I’ll go with you, but it’s not a real date. You still have to get down on your knees and beg me for that, so no getting any ideas like making it to second base.”

“Tt,” Damian says. “There’s probably not anything there anyway.”

 

At fifteen, Damian meets a nice girl at school named Jessie. Maybe too nice for Damian, as Tim points out, but she’s smart and likes to talk mechanics with Damian and is patient as hell when Damian’s being a jerk but has a firm line she doesn’t let him cross, either.

Steph passes Jessie leaving the mansion, waves to her, and then locates Damian under the Batmobile, messing with something. “Whatcha doing?” Steph asks, perching on the hood.

“You will scratch the paint,” Damian scolds. “Get off.”

“Please, last week you threw some guy onto the hood and then punched him in the face.” Steph doesn’t move. “So what are you planning for Valentines?”

The clattering under the car stops for a moment. “I thought maybe dinner at La Grenouille,” he says. “Then maybe a carriage-”

He cuts off because Steph’s laughing so hard she can’t help kicking her feet against the front bumper.

“Stop that,” Damian says. “Now damaging the car in a fight is one thing, but could you not be needlessly destructive? And what is wrong with what I just said?”

Steph draws a breath, hiccups. “Nothing, if you were dating someone else. Didn’t you tell me she’s a vegetarian cause she believes in animal rights?” Damian dating a girl who literally wouldn’t hurt a fly was funny in itself, but. “La Grenouille serves foie gras and she probably doesn’t approve of how they treat the carriage horses either. Plus she just walked out of here in cargo pants and a tank top.”

Damian rolls out from under the car and glares at Steph. “Fine, what would you do?”

Steph shrugs. “She’s your girlfriend, Damian, you gotta figure that out for yourself. But do something that’s about her and not just the thing they programmed into you when they built you.”

“Ha ha,” Damian says, although it’s not that far from the truth. “Could you try being helpful for once?”

“I’m always helpful. But, say, you were going to ask me out. Obviously, I’m not the kind of girl you take to La Grenouille, either. You’d be better off taking me somewhere, you know, fun.”

Damian snorts. “Oh, you’re easy. I’d just take you to The Frontier for brunch. They’re supposed to have the best waffles in town.” He rolls back under the car.

Steph isn’t sure why she feels like someone just smacked her with a board.

“And Stephanie, that actually approached helpful. Thank you.”

Steph closes her mouth and kicks Damian in the ankle. “Well, when you’re eighteen and down on your knees asking me for a date, you can take me out for waffles.”

 

Damian has his first bad breakup at sixteen.

“Why are women awful?” Damian grouses, kicking the crap out of a punching bag.

Steph gives him an offended look.

“Well, you’re not really a woman,” Damian says. It comes out meaner than he’d really meant. “I mean, you’re one of us, so you’re kind of cool on occasion.” Damian knows by now that she and Dick are really far better to him than he deserves, most days. He’s a little sad for her having to give up her kid and all, because he’s pretty sure she’d make an awesome mother. The kind that would certainly never remotely control her son’s body.

What he'd really meant is that she isn't just any woman.

“On behalf of the awesome women of the world, you can beg me for a date,” Steph says. “When you’re eighteen.”

 

 

Damian’s seventeen and he’s gotten hot. Not that Steph wants to admit this to him, since he’s pretty insufferable already. In the face he looks more like his mother, but his physique is all Bruce. He’s taller than Dick now and only a little shorter than Bruce, and he can be terrifying when he wants to, but he doesn't give her the heebies anymore the way he did when he was ten.

It’s actually kind of disturbing, because when Damian walks into a room she kind of wants to swoon just from his presence. Just a little, of course. She wouldn’t actually do it. Damian has the same force of personality and ability to command attention that Bruce has as Batman, and sometimes when he wants to as Bruce Wayne. It sits more naturally on Damian, though, and while he’s become a halfway decent human being, she can’t entirely forget that he was raised more or less as royalty, because he still has that kind of self-confidence about him.

She can’t stop thinking about it now. She hasn’t said it lately - “When you’re eighteen, you can ask me out.” The last time was when Damian was bitching about prom, and how Bruce told him he had to go, for cover or something, and how awful his dating pool was. She hasn’t said it because it’s not a joke anymore.

Steph wonders if Damian’s noticed that she hasn't.

She gets her answer when he shows up at her house. “You’ve stopped telling me I can ask you out,” Damian says without so much as a hello. “I think that means you want me to ask. So. Go out with me.”

Steph doesn’t know what to say. “I said when you were eighteen,” she says, while she tries to recover.

“The first time, you said when I was legal. I am over the age of consent and I am taking you at your word. And I did bring flowers.” Sunflowers - so she has taught him something. Damian prowls a little closer, looming over her. She can smell him now; he smells partly the way all of the Bats do, faint sweat, kevlar, oil. With that is expensive cologne and something unidentifiably masculine. His hands are on her shoulders and her brain feels like it’s stuck in molasses, thick, and her mind is swimming.

“Um,” she says, coherently.

Damian pushes her back into the wall, firmly but not hard, one of his hands sliding down her spine, his arm wrapping around her waist. He leans in and steals a kiss, tucking his head to catch her lips, then pulls back. “Go out with me,” he repeats. He’s meeting her eyes straight on, gaze serious and calm, though there’s the barest hint of nervousness behind his expression.

Steph swallows. “I told you you had to get down on your knees and ask.”

Damian groans. “You weren’t serious about that? I’m asking you out on a date, not proposing marriage.”

“I’m serious,” Steph says. Her hands have found his arms, though, holding him in place, because she doesn’t mean it, not really. She never really wanted this man to have to grovel for her.

Damian’s expression shifts now and he’s smirking at her. “How about you get down on _your_ knees, and-”

Steph hits him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

Damian’s back to serious. “I meant it, though.”

“Fine. Ask me nicely.”

“That wasn’t nicely enough for you?”

“Nn-nn.” Steph smiles a little. “Nicer. And try to sound like you’re asking, not giving an order.”

“Fine, fine.” Damian leans in closer, breath ghosting over Steph’s lips. “Stephanie Brown...” His lips brush across her cheek. “You are a beautiful, gorgeous woman.” He plants a soft kiss below her ear. “And I no longer think you stuff your bra.” Another kiss and Steph laughs breathlessly. “I like you very much.” He trails his lips down Steph’s neck and she idly wonders where he learned to be so damn seductive. Probably from watching Dick at it and she wasn’t sure if she was going to kill Dick or send him a gift basket. “Will you have Sunday brunch with me?”

Steph lets out a sigh, pretending to be unaffected, though it comes out breathier than she wanted. “I suppose I can’t say no to that, can I? Bring flowers. Or chocolates. Or-”

“Waffles?” Damian suggests.

“That strikes me as entirely impractical.”

“The best gifts are impractical and delicious,” Damian says, and pinches her ass. Steph jumps, indignant, and glares at him. “I’ll pick you up at ten.” He smirks at her and saunters off.

Steph glares half-heartedly at his retreating back. Maybe she should have made him beg.

**Author's Note:**

> And when Damian showed up to pick Steph up for their date, he brought her a bottle of maple syrup that he flew to Vermont to get.


End file.
